Bittersweet Recovery
by happyalvin
Summary: After causing a terrible accident Caroline Cassidy is ready to end her life, unable to cope with the devastation that she has caused and the reality that she is a mutant with the ability to manipulate the elements. Ready to jump, Caroline is stopped by the X-Men who may just be able to save her in more ways than one along with a certain white haired speed demon…


_The music was loud and all around Caroline were her classmates who were all laughing, dancing and generally having a good time as they all went about celebrating the start of summer. Sophmore year was finally over and not it was time to celebrate which was what led close to sixty teenagers partying in a foreclosed house. Caroline stood in the corner of the living room and she watched as the people come and go, some of them drinking, some of them just idly chatting with each other and having a good time. Most of the people here Caroline knew pretty well as she had been going to school with them since elementary. Salem wasn't too big of a town, the town's population was just under 30,000. Not too big but not too small that you would be running into each other on a daily basis as Caroline's father always told her. As she stood and watched as her classmates continued to party, Caroline couldn't help fun herself with her hand and she was incredibly hot. Stifling to put it lightly, but it was a warm and balmy night outside yet Caroline felt like she was a Thanksgiving turkey in the over, cooking inside and always hot. Caroline was always hot, she always felt hot no matter how many cold showers she took, no matter how windows she opened or how many times she opened the freezer and stuck her head in it. The heat never seemed to go away, for weeks Caroline had been feeling like this. According to her doctor there was nothing wrong with Caroline but she knew better, her temperature this morning had been 106__°F._ _That was not humanly possible and that wasn't the only weird thing which had been happening to Caroline recently, things had happened which she couldn't quite explain. Scary stuff which had caused a lot of damage, like the fire that had destroyed the old movie theatre or the river that had mysteriously burst it banks even though they were in the midst of a drought, people didn't know why the old Oak Tree that was over a hundred years old and been planted by some mayor had suddenly been uprooted or why cracks were appearing in the streets, cracks that would go for miles… It was crazy and Caroline wasn't crazy. She was normal, a normal sixteen year old girl. She was a cheerleader and a gymnast, not a freak… Her dad was an lawyer and her mother was a teacher. They ate brunch, went on dorky family holidays and did lose of community outreach. They were the normal ones. Caroline was a normal girl and she wanted to be just that, nothing more than that._

_Things had to be fine, Caroline hadn't worked so hard for everything she had just for it to be ruined. She was normal. It was what Caroline told herself everyday since all this stuff had started to happen.. If she kept telling herself that she was normal, then maybe things would go back to normal and this nightmare would finally be over. That she could forget that any of this weird stuff was going on. No more weird accidents would happen. Caroline told herself that she needed to stop thinking about all of that stuff as that's not what normal people did and she was normal and she needed to start acting like the teenaged girl she was. _

_"Cheer up Care! It's a party but that face of yours belongs at a funeral…"_

_Pulling her thoughts out of the clouds that she no longer wanted to dwell in Caroline looked up to see Haley Oswald, her best friend looking at her in a disapproving manner._

_"Sorry Haley, my mind drifted off somewhere…" Caroline apologetically stated with a small smile. Caroline didn't even want to come to this party given what was going on but it was Haley who had convinced her to come and as Caroline told herself once more, this was what normal teenaged girls did. They hung out with friends and went to parties. It was what normal people did and pretty much what most of her life consisted off and Caroline was going to get that consistency bank and hold on to it for deal life even if it killed her._

_"Well… Now that I have you back Caroline make sure it stays here! It's summer vacation! Now is the time to be letting loose and having fun after all that hard work we put into making sure we passed our finals! Now we get to reap all that hard work and have fun! We are no longer sophomore's anymore and we are going to celebrate that! This is the first of many parties that we'll be ending Caroline and trust me when I say this is going to be the best summer of our lives! Now drink this, it will turn that frown of yours upside down…" Haley enthusiastically stated as she handed Caroline a cup which caused her to smile. Life was never boring when Haley was around, the pint sized girl was always the life and soul of the party and the most upbeat person Caroline knew. It was like Haley was just made up of pep and nothing else._

_"Whatever you say Hales!" Caroline replied before taking a long sip of the beverage that Haley and once the beverage was down her throat she couldn't help but blanche. It was rum and coke, very heavy on the run but Caroline wasn't complaining as Haley was right. The alcohol would be good in helping her to unwind as over the last couple of weeks Caroline had been wound up pretty tightly and it wasn't about finals like Haley believed. Taking another sip of the rum heavy drink, Caroline smiled and this time it was less forced, she felt slightly better with some liquid courage in her and was ready to have fun._

_"Now come along with me Caroline, there is someone who is just dying to see you…" Haley began and before Caroline could even say anything, Haley grabbed her arm and started pulling her along, through the crowd of people who were all congregated in the living room. Not caring at all if she was pushing past people in typical Haley fashion, Caroline knew better than to argue with Haley so she just allowed her friend to drag her along through the house to the kitchen. Caroline didn't know what was so important for Haley to bring them here at first, until she was pulled over to where a certain boy was standing. Not just any boy but the cute captain of the soccer team; Colby Sanders. He was beautifully tall with short blonde hair along with his infamous cowlick, hazel eyes and a dazzling smile to boot. Caroline had spent the better part of the year swooning at Colby from afar. The two of them knew each other casually as they ran in the same social group and had a lot of mutual friends. "Colby look who I just ran into on my way back from the ladies room! I was saying to Caroline, what a coincidence it was that I ran into her because the two of us were just chatting about her."_

_"Hales, what are you talk–" Caroline began as Haley had said nothing to her about Colby in the slightest but before she could even finish her sentence, Haley roughly nudged Caroline in the ribs to shut her up. A look passed between the two friends before Haley slinked off leaving Caroline in the kitchen with Colby. The two of them weren't alone as there were several others hanging out in the kitchen but they were all doing their own thing._

_"Hey Caroline."_

_"Hi Colby." Caroline replied in a rather shy and quiet manner before forcing herself to take a long gulp of her drink, she needed all the liquid courage she could get to be able to have an actual conversation with Colby without turning into a bumbling idiot. She didn't have Haley or any of her other friends here with her, to act as a buffer and to make sure the conversation kept going. Caroline was on her own and she could feel herself sinking pretty fast._

_"I heard from one of the guys that you weren't going to the party tonight, they said something about how you had a few things on and then something about you being burned out because of finals." Colby began and Caroline slowly nodded her head. That was indeed true until Haley got her hands on her and pretty much gave Caroline no choice in the option. There was no option at all, Haley had came to her house and said that Caroline was coming to the party. There was no ifs or buts._

_"I don't know about burned out, studying for finals was intense but not that intense so I have no clue where the whole burned out thing came from…" Caroline lied and she was burned out, in ways that Colby could never even imagine but she couldn't tell him that. "I just had a few things going on but I just had to juggle a couple of things around, no real biggie…"_

_"Well I'm glad that you came, the party wouldn't have been the same without you." Colby stated and Caroline could feel her cheeks starting to tinge pink and she had to remind herself that she had to play it cool and not screw up and make herself look like a complete idiot._

_"Thanks."_

_"So I'm just going to come out and say this Caroline because I spent the entire year trying to gather up the courage to ask you out and if I don't do it now, then I will chicken out and never do it. So here goes… Caroline Cassidy, would you like to go out with me sometime?" Colby questioned and Caroline couldn't actually believe this was happening as this all seemed to be a little bit of a dream._

_"I'd love that." Caroline eventually replied with a goofy grin on her face as she didn't care anymore as right now it seemed like her wish was coming true and everything was going the way it should be. Caroline continued to talk with Colby, the two of them in their seemingly own little world, not caring less about the people around them and the fact that were at a party until she had to excuse herself. Caroline wondered off to the downstairs bathroom and pretty much stumbled her way inside because she had this piercing headache. It was sharp and painful, causing Caroline to wince constantly as the pain only increased. At first Caroline hoped, no she prayed that it was because of all the alcohol she had been drinking on an empty stomach. But it soon became clear to her that this wasn't an alcohol related headache. It was the worse headache, the one that never seemed to go away. They were constant, just like the sun rising every morning was constant and these headaches seemed to occur when something bad was about to happen._

_Caroline clutched at her head and prayed that this wasn't happening, that this would all go away. But it wasn't going anywhere, the pain was only getting worse and for Caroline it seemed like her head was about to burst, like it was on fire. Willing herself to try and get a hold of herself Caroline slowly left the downstairs bathroom and she attempted to make her way to the back of the house towards the dining room as she just needed to pull herself together. But nothing seemed to work and the moment Caroline entered the dining room, her eyes caught sight of the drapes and immediately they were on fire. Caroline couldn't believe what had happened, that the drapes had caught fine. That she had done that. Caroline just stood there and watched as the fire continued to burn, from where she stood Caroline could feel the heat from the fire and it felt familiar. The warmth was oddly comforting to her. Then the fire started to spread and Caroline didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to stop it. The fire seemed to start when she looked at the drapes and she tried that again but it only seemed to make things worse. The fire was getting hotter and hotter, it was spreading everywhere and Caroline didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could…_

_She ran. _

* * *

><p>They were dead. Colby, Haley and another girl April Warner, Caroline didn't know the exact details as she had panicked and bailed the moment that she knew the fire was going to get out of hand. Caroline didn't really remember much of what happened next, before she knew it she was outside and then people much have been alerted to the fire as soon enough people started to run out of the house. The whole thing seemed to move in slow motion for Caroline as she watched people running for their lives, trying to escape. The fire seemed to have spread very quickly as it seemed like it was mere minutes before the whole house went up in flames and then it blew. The whole house was destroyed and at the time Caroline didn't know that there were still people in the house, that Haley along with Colby and April were still in the house. Caroline had learned that news the next day and she was devastated. It killed her which is why Caroline was standing on top of a bridge right now and ready to jump as it was her fault that three people were dead. She was the one who started the fire and it wasn't just this fire, she was responsible for the fire that destroyed the old movie theatre along with whatever freaky thing she did to cause the Oak tree to be uprooted and the river to burst it's banks. All of this bad stuff that was happening and it was all because of her, because of her three people were dead including her best friend and Caroline couldn't live with that, what she done and the deep dark truth about herself that she was trying so hard to keep denying. But things had gone too far that Caroline knew that she could no longer hide from the truth; she was a mutant. A mutant who had killed three people and she could never escape from that. Caroline could never forgive herself for what she had done, which is why she had to do this.<p>

Furiously wiping away her tears Caroline took a slow and steady step on the ledge of the bridge as she prepared to jump. It was the only thing she knew that could stop all of this. Three people were dead, she had destroyed three families as well a huge part of the city that she had loved. Her heart ached, grief and guilt clawed at Caroline's stomach day and night, all she wanted to do was scream and shout because she couldn't believe what she had done. She was a monster and needed to be stopped which is why she had to jump. Caroline knew that this was the only way as she was a danger to everything and everyone, things were spinning out of control so quickly and there was nothing she could do to stop. People were going to keep getting hurt if she didn't put a stop this right now. Caroline was scared, she was terrified but this was the only way to protect everyone. If she was dead then nobody else would get hurt, no one else would die and Caroline wouldn't have to live with all of this, her being a mutant and how she had hurt one of the most important people in her life. It hurt way too much.

"_Please don't jump Caroline…"_

That voice. It sounded clear as day but it was impossible as no one was here as Caroline had made sure that nobody would be here to stop her when she came to the bridge. She didn't deserve to be saved after what she had done, she had done something was so unforgivable that she didn't deserve to be saved. Caroline needed to make things right and this was the only was the one way she knew how. She didn't deserve to live whilst others were dead because of her, it wasn't fair. Everyone else would be better off without her, no one else would be hurt because she was a mutant and that was the only thing that provided Caroline with any comfort. Not that she deserved any of it.

"Caroline."

This time Caroline was certain that she heard someone calling her name and ever so slightly, she looked over her shoulder and found that she wasn't alone. Back on the side walk beside the bridge were two people, an older looking man in a wheelchair who was completely bald and with him was a woman, not as old as the man but she seemed very refined and held herself with grace. The woman had dark skin, long white hair and these mesmerising blue eyes. They somehow knew her but Caroline had no idea who they were and she just wanted them to go away, she just wanted to left alone so she could die with what little peace she had left.

"G-Go away…" Caroline chocked out as she struggled to form any words, she was just so tired.

"I'm afraid we can't do that Caroline, we don't want you to hurt yourself."

"You don't know anything, if knew what I had done then you would leave me alone so I can do this." Caroline wearily replied as she felt the tears staring to fall again. Barely an hour went by since the fire that Caroline wasn't crying, she just couldn't help herself. The tears were unable to stop. Nor did Caroline want to stop as her heart ached in her chest, it was falling apart and she just wanted to rip it out of her chest so she none of this would hurt so much. This was not the way things were supposed to be. If she had only been normal than none of this would have happened and Haley, April and Colby would all be alive. It wasn't fair that they died and she got to live. Caroline knew if anyone deserved to die in the fire then it was her. It was her fault anywhere. If she hadn't been such a coward and ran away, maybe things would have be different. If she wasn't a mutant things would be different.

"The fire wasn't your fault Caroline."

"What do you know about the fire?" Caroline demanded as she looked over her shoulder back to the man and the woman, specifically the man who was the one doing most of the talking. He was the one who wanted to talk when talking was the last thing that Caroline wanted to do. She was done with talking. It wasn't going to change anything, it was going to bring Haley or the others back. Talking did nothing.

"I know a lot of things Caroline, especially about you… I know that recently you've been going through a lot of changes. Ones that didn't make sense to you and all of a sudden you were doing things that didn't seem possible. Like what happened at the movie theatre and the river flooding. I know that you are scared and confused Caroline but this is not the answer. Jumping off this bridge isn't going to take away your pain."

"I know what is like to be a scared and confused young mutant, unsure of what is happening to their body and why they are doing things that are seemingly unexplainable. My name is Professor Charles Xavier and I run a school that shelters mutants and help young mutants like yourself control your powers. Myself and my colleague Ororo would very much like to help you Caroline if you'd let us." Professor Xavier stated in a soothing tone of voice but Caroline just shook her head. Nobody could help her.

Mutant. The man or rather Professor Xavier said mutant and Caroline couldn't help but swallow a massive lump in her throat as the man knew what she was. He knew that she was a mutant and apparently he was one too. He was a freak like her. This nightmare was just getting worse for Caroline. Her wish for all of this to end was not going to come true. Things were just getting so much harder.

"I-I… I just want to be a normal girl… I don't want to be a mutant, I want t go back to being normal and have none of this stuff happen to me. I-I don't want to be like this. I just want it all to stop, I don't want to be a mutant. I j-just want my life back." Caroline sobbed as this was all getting too much for her and she couldn't take it anymore and she wanted to jump more than ever now. But she also wanted to cry. From the corner of her eye despite all the tears Caroline couldn't help but notice the woman who the Professor referred to as Ororo hesitantly climb onto the bridge but she made no move towards Caroline or attempt to pull her down.

"I know this hard, much harder than anything you could have possibly imagined Caroline but you are a mutant and you can't change that. All mutants have a gene that Professor Xavier calls an X-Gene and it's what allows us to develop abilities. Take myself and the Professor for the example, I can control the weather whilst the Professor is a telepath and you Caroline, from what we can tell can have the ability to manipulate the four natural elements. I know this is all a lot to take in and right you just want to be normal but being a mutant isn't the worst thing in the world. As much as you may not want to see it, you have a gift and one that you can put to good use in time." Ororo said in a calming one but Caroline's head was still whirling around with grief and guilt.

"No it's not… How can you call what I have a gift? I k-killed them… I killed them all." Caroline stammered as she thought back to the party, she thought back to how Haley had dragged her there and how this was supposed to be the best summer of their lives. But it wasn't going to be like that anymore because Haley was dead because of her. Caroline had killed her. She had killed her best friend and she would never see Haley again. She would never see Colby or April again, she would never get the chance to apologize for what she had done.

"No you didn't Caroline, it was a terrible and tragic accident and you didn't mean to hurt anyone. This wasn't your fault Caroline, you did not intend for this to happen or for anyone to die. It was an accident." Professor Xavier told her but Caroline didn't believe that. He wasn't there, he didn't see what had happened and what she had done.

"I-I can't do this…" Caroline sobbed, she wasn't strong enough to do this. "Nobody can help me."

"You can do this Caroline, I know you can do this even if you think you cannot do this and if you can't believe in yourself then believe in me. I can feel your suffering Caroline, please let me help us you… We can help you Caroline, no matter how long it takes I will be there to help you every step of the way. You are not alone Caroline, you will never be alone again I promise you. It's your choice…"

Caroline looked over at the Professor, she barely knew the man and she didn't have to listen to him. But there was something about him, the look in his eyes and the sincerity in his voice. He really did want to help her even after what she done. It was scary as the day she wanted to end her life, Professor Xavier offered to save it. There was something about the Professor that Caroline knew she could trust and so she turned to Ororo who was offering her hand and after a moment of hesitation Caroline took it and together they stepped off the bridge.


End file.
